Alchemy allows you to identify magical properties in ingredients and create potions to provide temporary or one-use benefits, such as healing, curing disease, water-walking, magical shielding, and fortifying bodily attributes. A higher alchemy skill allows you to see more effects of ingredients when you hover over them with the cursor, and therefore allows you to put these effects to use in potion-making. The higher your skill, the greater the chance of success when creating potions and the higher chance of receiving the first effect when eating an ingredient.

Alchemy in Morrowind is a potentially powerful tool if properly used. This page contains information and tips on getting the most from this skill.

The Master Trainer of Alchemy is Abelle Chriditte, who lives in the Propylon Chamber at Valenvaryon. There are very few other trainers of this skill, and no others of note. See Alchemy Trainers for the complete list.

In order to mix a potion, you will need at least a Mortar and Pestle, and two ingredients which share at least 1 effect. You can use up to four ingredients in a potion. Any effects shared by two or more of these ingredients will be applied to the potion. To begin the potion-mixing process, click and drop the Mortar and Pestle onto your character portrait. You will see a list of ingredients in the top section, and four boxes below for your apparatus, one of which will already contain your Mortar and Pestle. You can click these boxes to equip other apparatus, which will improve the quality of your potion in various ways (see "Tools" below). Below this is where the ingredients will appear, and to the right is a box showing you what the resulting effects (if any) of your potion will be. To add an ingredient, choose it from the top section. If you have a lot of ingredients, you may need to scroll the slider to see them all. You can also name your potion before mixing it. When you are ready to mix the potion, hit the "Create" button. Depending on your skill, Intelligence, and a little bit of Luck, you will either successfully make a potion, or fail, wasting the ingredients. If you have multiples of all ingredients involved, you can hit "Create" repeatedly until you run out to make many potions of the same type.

At first, you will only be able to see one or two effects listed in the stats of any given ingredient, depending on your starting skill. Each ingredient can have up to four effects. (See the charts listed in the links below for more specific information.) The number of effects you can see will depend on your skill, based on the following values:

0-14: No effects visible

15-29: 1 effect visible

30-44: 2 effects visible

45-59: 3 effects visible

60-100: All 4 effects visible

Some ingredients have fewer than 4 effects, and you can always tell how many effects an ingredient has, because unknown effects will be listed simply as "?". However, while you may not see all the effects listed, you can still make potions with these effects (a marked difference from Oblivion). If two ingredients you have chosen share an effect, even one that is hidden to you, the Alchemy screen will still show you what that effect will be on your potion. (This is one way to learn the later effects of ingredients even if your skill is very low.)

You don't necessarily need any tools at all to begin practicing Alchemy. Simply eating ingredients raw will improve your skill. (Though at 1/4 the rate of mixing potions.) Doing so will give you a (usually very weak and short-lasting) dose of the first listed effect of the ingredient. The other three effects can only be accessed by mixing a potion, and for that you will need at the very least a mortar and pestle.

The price of a potion is not affected by the presence or absence of an alembic, retort, or calcinator or the effects, so alchemy for profit can be done equally well with potions of Drain Strength as it can with potions of Reflect. The weight of a potion is an average of the weight of the ingredients, rounded down.

Mortar and Pestle

This is the only tool which is required to make a potion. The quality of the Mortar and Pestle directly affects the initial quality of the potion produced.

Alembic

This will reduce the strength and duration of any negative effects produced by a given combination of ingredients as well as the weight of the resultant potion. If the ingredients you are mixing do not have any negative effects, you do not need to use an Alembic excepting the reduction of weight. (Note that Skooma Pipes actually function as Alembics, though they are so weak as to be not really worth using for the purpose.)

Retort

This will increase the strength and duration of all positive effects in the potion. If the potion has no positive effects, this will do nothing. (Of course, since there's no way to make a potion affect anyone but yourself in Morrowind, there is little reason to make such a potion, other than perhaps to sell for profit. Having a Retort will not change the price.)

Calcinator

This will increase the strength and duration of all effects, positive or negative.

Mortar and Pestle

Apprentice's Mortar and Pestleapparatus_a_mortar_01

5

100

0.5

Journeyman's Mortar and Pestleapparatus_j_mortar_01

4

400

1

Master's Mortar and Pestleapparatus_m_mortar_01

3

2400

1.2

Grandmaster's Mortar and Pestleapparatus_g_mortar_01

2

4000

1.5

SecretMaster's Mortar and Pestleapparatus_sm_mortar_01

1

6000

2

Alembic

Apprentice's Alembicapparatus_a_alembic_01

10

50

0.5

Journeyman's Alembicapparatus_j_alembic_01

7

200

1

Master's Alembicapparatus_m_alembic_01

5

1200

1.2

Grandmaster's Alembicapparatus_g_alembic_01

3

4000

1.5

SecretMaster's Alembicapparatus_sm_alembic_01

3

1600

2

Retort

Apprentice's Retortapparatus_a_retort_01

8

20

0.5

Journeyman's Retortapparatus_j_retort_01

6

80

1

Master's Retortapparatus_m_retort_01

4

480

1.2

Grandmaster's Retortapparatus_g_retort_01

3

1600

1.5

SecretMaster's Retortapparatus_sm_retort_01

2

1000

2

Calcinator

Apprentice's Calcinatorapparatus_a_calcinator_01

25

10

0.5

Journeyman's Calcinatorapparatus_j_calcinator_01

18

40

1

Master's Calcinatorapparatus_m_calcinator_01

13

240

1.2

Grandmaster's Calcinatorapparatus_g_calcinator_01

8

4000

1.5

SecretMaster's Calcinatorapparatus_sm_calcinator_01

6

3200

2

Note that Secret Master tools are only accessible on the PC version. Even then, they are only obtainable through using the console.

To maximize the effect of your potions, you'll need to use the highest class apparatus you can get and fortify your intelligence or luck. Both intelligence and luck are a contributing factors in making effective potions. While this can be done through magic and enchantments, you can do this using alchemy itself. A potion to Fortify Intelligence can be made with ash yams, bloat, netch leather, and for Bloodmoon players, horker tusk. Aside from horker tusk, these should be easily bought from alchemists/apothecaries/etc. While your intelligence is fortified from such potions, go ahead and mix the other potions you originally wanted to make. You can even stack Fortify Intelligence potions, and since each potion will be made with ever increasing skill, the values for the potions will go up exponentially. It is possible to make incredibly powerful potions that last for weeks in this way.

Beware, however, that an excessive use of this technique (or just making a certain potion) can cause the game to glitch/crash, e.g. with intelligence 55000+ and luck of 3500+, a Fortify Speed/Levitate potion can cause you to run/fly through the ground, a wall, cliff, etc and freeze the game. If you are lucky, you will either re-appear where you left the game, or die and reload.

Something else to note is that canceling the effects of very-long-term potions can be problematic.

Lower effect, but still indecently powerful potions can be created by exploiting Spellmakers. Create a spell that has Fortify Alchemy 100 pts for 3 secs eight times (you can also repeat the same effect on Fortify Attribute spells). Now cast and immediately go into your inventory to create potions. You will create very powerful potions that are not obscenely powerful, anytime anywhere without the bother of getting a large number of ingredients and so forth. Duration of super powerful potions is not really a problem, just rest for 3 days and the potion effects are gone.

The extra tools have various effects, depending on the combination of tools used and the type of potion being made. Retorts and Calcinators add a certain number of points of magnitude, and a certain number of seconds to the duration. Alembics reduce strength and duration by a percentage, and using an Alembic and Calcinator together significantly reduces the strength and duration of negative effects. To determine bonuses/penalties, use the following:

For positive effects, do this to both the Strength and Duration:

If using Retort *or* Calcinator, round the quality to the nearest whole number (minimum 1) and add

Note that, because of the rounding of apparatus Quality in these formulas, for positive effects, there's only two effective Qualities of Calcinators and Retorts:

Apprentice, Journeyman, Master (all round to 1), and

Grandmaster and Secret Master (round to 2).

For negative effects, do the following:

If using Alembic only, divide by (AlembicQuality + 1)

If using Calcinator only, round CalcinatorQuality to nearest whole number (minimum 1) and add

Using an Alembic and Calcinator together has somewhat unpredictable results, but it will reduce (instead of increasing like the Calcinator is supposed to) both the PotionStrength and PotionDuration by a certain amount. The exact formula involved is rather complex and frustrating, so use the table below, based on the in-game tool qualities (multiply PotionStrength and PotionDuration by said number)

App Calc

Journ Calc

Mast Calc

GMast Calc

SMast Calc

App Alem

48/120

30/120

26/120

22/120

17/120

Journ Alem

37/120

24/120

21/120

18/120

15/120

Mast Alem

31/120

22/120

20/120

17/120

14/120

GMast Alem

27/120

20/120

18/120

16/120

13/120

SMast Alem

22/120

17/120

16/120

14/120

12/120

Note: some effects do not act like they're supposed to, for example, when making an invisibility potion, you'll receive a longer duration if you use *either* a Calcinator or Retort than if using both - the reasons for this are as of yet unknown

Price: The price of the resulting potion is equal to the BasePotionStrength, and is not affected by any other tools, or by having multiple effects (the potion will cost the same whether it has 1 or 8 different effects)